The validity of this rumor will be confirmed on Monday, April 1, 2013 at 6:00 PM at CNR-Center Light Health Care Center, which is located at 727 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, NY (between Park and Prospect Places). ...when the CB8 Liquor Lic subcommittee meets.

Comments

The mtg seems to always occur on the first Monday of the month. It just so happens that the first Monday of April is the 1st.

SLA & SIDEWALK CAFE REVIEW COMMITTEE

Chairperson: Mr. Alton Pierce

Meeting Day: 1st Monday of the Month

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Place: CNR-Centerlight Healthcare Center in the ATRIUM

727 Classon Avenue (bet.Park Place and Prospect Place)

Responsibilities include the following:

Review and discuss both new and renewal applications for establishments seeking liquor licenses from New York State Liquor Authority for clubs, bars, restaurants, local grocery stores, and other establishments in the District

Anything to bring street life to those blocks is great, they're sketchy as all hell. One of my first times visiting Crown Heights was biking over one night to a friend's place near Bedford via the Dean/Bergen bike lanes-- the blocks around Classon made me feel like I'd get tackled off my bike or something.

A big part of the problem is that the area is not zoned for residential, and manufacturing isn't something that NYC still excels at.

Many of the car repair and storage businesses are holdovers from the 1960s, when Bedford Ave and the surrounding area used to be one of THE PLACES in Brooklyn to buy a new car, or get work done on your broken car.

As a result, no one is supposed to be living in the zone. So, if it makes you feel any better, 883 Dean is hopefully the home of some guy's construction or welding business ...not his actual home.

As the surronding area become wealthier, the definition of "manufacturing use" is likely to become fluid.

For example, the new owner of 893 Dean is reportedly proposing that s/he be allowed to manufacture jobs, taxes, profit and mildly intoxicated people ...and is confident enough that s/he will be able to do it that they paid a lot of money for the lots.

I went on a tour of the space today. It will have several performance spaces, as well as a bar and a restaurant. They are looking to open part if it in Dec 2014, and then the rest of it in Spring 2015.

They said the outdoor space could be used to eat pizza and drink alcohol, but seemed to wince at the term "beer garden".

CB8 has several concerns (noise, outdoor space, security, etc) that have not previously been responded to. However, last year, Global Square submitted an application to SLA without waiting for the CBs support.

In June CB8, sent a letter to SLA stating their concerns and their "non-support".

It is now up to the SLA whether to grant the lic without the CB's support. The Subcommittee feels the SLA will have the same concerns they do.

The applicants appear to have no experience running a similar venue. They have proposed using a security firm which is not presently registered with SLA and other entities.

They appeared in front of the CB8 committee tonight, and were provided with a list of reasons why the CB is not in support of their application.

The applicants were encouraged to scale back their application. ...perhaps nix the outdoor space or limit how late it is open, serve fewer patrons, hire lots of security, yada yada.

The suggestion that the outdoor space close at 10 is just completely uninformed. Patrons of music venues rarely arrive before 10pm. I wouldn't expect anyone on the CB to know this fact, unless they were to consult their offspring.

If I were them, I would take my chances going without the support of the board, so that they can possibly open up something thats financially sustainable.

Yeah, I won't call the neighborhood transformation quite complete until that block (and its counterpart on Pacific Street) are "fixed." A lot of potential, but the current zoning status seems to have delayed progress.